Instead of complaining to one company, why not start supporting existing alternative platforms and products that support their vision? Why not support open devices where developers and consumers will have freedom from exorbitant pricing?
Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes
831–840 of 1001 posts
Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes
#832Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow that site was disappointing. It focused mostly on the 30% apple charges, which is both common and reasonable. It mentions the anti competitive behavior but mostly how it inflates prices, which is exactly how apple is trying to frame the debate. Also they have cookies on an entirely static site and disable scrolling until you press accept in the cookie dick bar (something you should probably never do, certainly no…
Common and reasonable according to which standards? One of the arguments of Epic in court is that Apple set the standard and other stores are simply following it.
That's a pretty silly argument considering Steam launched with a 30% fee a full 5 years before the App Store was even a thing.
Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes
#833Earlier quoted context omitted.
The wider context around the specific issues can still be useful in deciding what's "best" (distinct from "right"). EG: look at the antitrust case Apple lost over eBook pricing. The rules said they should lose in order to ensure a fair market for eBooks, a minute's consideration of the wider context said that if they lost Amazon would suck up the entire market. Which it did. The net result, even if narrowly within th…
No, the rules say organizing a price fixing ring is illegal. The result of which was literally to simultaneously raise prices for consumers across all platforms. It's particularly ironic in this case because the whole point of the exercise for Apple was to increase prices so they could still charge their extortionate 30%. Amazon wasn't remotely that greedy.
Royalties for self publishing an ebook on Amazon top out at 70%.
Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes
#834Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, let’s apply this same logic to accessibility. Let’s say the government says “devices must have voice over functionality”. Ok, great. Apple puts that as an option, and we’re done. The same applies for if the government said “you have a right to install apps of your choice”. Apple adds a setting in the settings menu. You still get your locked down device by default, and much like blind people, people who care about…
> The same applies for if the government said “you have a right to install apps of your choice”. I don't like the idea that the government can force you to build things you don't want to build. If I don't want to build a general purpose computing device, why should the government be able to force me to? There's a compelling argument for requiring building in handicapped-accessible features, but that is relevant to th…
Our justice system is good at drawing squiggly lines. It’s luckily based on intent and outcome and not exact wording.
There’s no reason the law couldn’t carve out a class of devices as “general purpose computing devices” which would exclude fine homemade / artisanal / hyper-focused kindles, gaming consoles, etc. of course these lines get moved around and tested in many ways. Much like how assault weapons are hard to define, and yet regulated in many places.
But laws like this exist all over, and many do great good for the common cause. Accessibility is one example.
If unlocking general purpose computing devices drove trillions in GDP and innovation, didn’t harm anyone, and generally improved consumers lives, I don’t see why we need a direct precedent. We have laws on return policies, lemons, telephone usage, and all sorts of consumer driven things. There’s plenty of indirect precedent.
Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes
#835Device freedom is a must. Any device should be completely controllable by the end user. There's two parts to this to me: app stores and the data collected by the devices. Users should have the freedom to install any software on their devices, period. Users should also have the freedom to stop all data collection by these devices. This applies to all electronics--video game consoles, TVs, printers, who knows what else…
The common misconception of HN crowd: assumption that everyone are like them and actually want complete control. There is a nontrivial cost to having that control and not many actually want it. They want something that works and is useable.
I don't mind if people want to pay for someone to curate their apps, but I don't see any reason developers shouldn't be able to charge those people +43% for buying through the curated app store. If there's really as much value as everyone claims then users won't have a problem paying extra, right?
I also think it's crazy that IAPs are viewed as anything more than a simple payment that would incur normal payment processing fees. You'd never find anyone willing to argue that VISA or Mastercard should be able to charge 30% for payment processing because of the infrastructure they provide for merchants.
Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes
#836Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're not going to get open firmware. Cell phones are radio transceivers in the hands of millions of unlicensed users. The only reason any of the cellular infrastructure works is all the devices run tested and certified firmware. For most cellular basebands the PHY is more powerful and capable than the regulations would normally allow. They only get certified for consumer use because the firmware bounds the operatio…
True, but anyone mildly determined can get a two year old device, 0day the baseband, and have full access. I remember old iOS exploits that gave access to the full baseband as well.
That's nothing at all like a consumer device being offered for sale with an intentionally tweakable baseband firmware. Getting a device certified by the FCC (and equivalents) doesn't require that the baseband firmware be 100% free or 0-day exploits. You can hack certified devices in all sorts of ways but you're then breaking the law (wrt to the radio portion) and doing so completely outside a relationship with the equipment manufacturer.
Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes
#837Earlier quoted context omitted.
I frequently receive inserts like that from sellers on eBay, promoting their own direct-sales site.
And there is a reason the seller is mentioning while trying to hide mentioning that to you from Ebay.
No hiding required. Inserts are allowed according to eBay policy:
https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/payment-policies/offers-b...
Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes
#838From https://appfairness.org/our-vision/ > No app store owner should prohibit third parties from offering competing app stores on the app store owner’s platform, or discourage developers or consumers from using them. I don't disagree but does this mean Sony should allow, for example, Steam to be installed on the PS5? Or is the definition of "App Store" used here narrow and arbitrary?
Yes, it means Sony has to add Steam to PS5 or else it is narrow and arbitrary. To me the iPhone is a console, end of story. If you like the console experience, it’s a great device. If you don’t, there are a million android and even alternative OS based phones out there which are more like a PC. If you want your phone to be a PC, you should do what most people around the world do and buy one of those. Instead we have…
Well, then the good thing for you is that you have to simply not install those other stores, and keep buying from Apple's official app store. Why prevent other users/devs from using them?
Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes
#839Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I agree. What "consistently applied principle" did you interpret my comment to be against? The principle that would be applied when considering game consoles. In other words, it's not "foolish" or "lazy", rather it is what consistently applying a principle looks like in practice. The perceived difference between user behavior or criticality on big glass app-based smartphones vs consoles is ephemeral.
>The principle that would be applied when considering game consoles. What "principle" is that, specifically ? I genuinely don't understand. Is it my usage of disparaging terms? If so, that's fair. If not, can you articulate why the idea put forth that it's useless to compare consoles and smartphones is somehow violating a "first principle". What first principle does that idea violate?
To summarize the conversation so far: burlesona extended an analogy by suggesting that console software lock-in is a feature that gamers seek out, and for those gamers that don't like it, there is a more than acceptable option that other gamers seek out. Their argument is that the principles that would apply with gaming consoles should also in theory also apply with app-based mobile phones.
You countered that it was a "ridiculous analogy" that it's "foolish" and "lazy" (really, try cordially engaging with an argument next time) — suggesting that mobile phones are more critical than game consoles because the former are practically a part of people's everyday life, and more than just a "nice-to-have".
I (and a couple others) responded by pointing out that the practical reality you pointed out is true now, but wasn't true as recently as 10 years ago, and that it's hard to know if it will continue to be true 10 years from now. I explicitly referred to this as an "ephemeral norm", and that basing policy on ephemeral norms rather than abstract principles is ill-advised, to which you agreed. The market conditions will most probably change as different technologies are invented, as has been the case for the last century.
Apple's walled garden is a feature to a lot of its customers (myself included), and people like me seek that out. For those customers that don't like it, there is a more than acceptable OS option (and many acceptable hardware options) that they may seek out. That is the abstract principle.
Re: Epic, Spotify, and Tinder form advocacy group to push for app store changes
#840Earlier quoted context omitted.
What I learned from past experiences is to never use analogies. They are almost always a source of distraction, people start to argue about the analogy itself instead of the topic at hand, which is almost always completely counter productive. Also it often only makes sense in the mind of the author...
Analogies can be powerful if told well. It just so happens that they're hard to tell well. Source: Cheerios
I only find them useful for topics I do not understand because they are very complex and abstract. For example the explanation of linking voltage/current/watts to pipes with flowing water made sense to me because electrons moving through a conductor is too abstract but saying "Voltage is like water pressure, it makes the electricity move faster" makes sense.